Matthew 20:1-16
Presented September 21, 2008, by J.D. Kline
The Nineteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Stewardship theme: Celebrate Abundance-Embrace Relationships
Philip Yancey, editor-at-large for Christianity Today magazine, claims—only somewhat tongue-in-cheek—that the gospel of Jesus displays atrocious mathematics. Consider some of Jesus’ most-loved stories, beginning with the parable of the lost sheep. A shepherd, aware that one of his flock has strayed, leaves 99 sheep behind to fend for themselves and plunges into the darkness to find the single sheep that has wandered away (Luke 15:3-7). A merchant in search of fine pearls comes across one pearl of great price, and sells everything that he possesses, in order to purchase that single pearl (Matthew 13:45-46). A woman takes a pint of exotic perfume, worth a whole year’s wages, and pours it on the feet of Jesus, an extravagant—indeed, a wasteful—act that Jesus nevertheless applauds (John 12:1-8). A poor widow drops two small copper coins in the temple treasury, and Jesus, observing her offering, asserts, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on” (Mark 12:41-43). More than all the other gifts for the temple treasury? What kind of atrocious math is this? One thing’s for sure; it’s no way to fund a growing church budget!
This morning’s Scripture lesson offers yet another example of the gospel’s atrocious, even absurd, mathematics. Truth be told, particularly for us who are currently living in the midst economic uncertainty, distress, and turbulence, Jesus’ story seems to offer a prime example of how not to run a business, should you want to maintain high employee loyalty and demonstrate equitable and just compensation. So what are we to make of this story Jesus tells of the landowner who hires laborers to work for him in the vineyard? No doubt it was a common practice, as the grape harvest ripened towards the end of September, to seek laborers to assist in harvesting the crop. It was not uncommon for rains to follow quickly on the heels of harvest time, and should the rains break in too soon, the harvest could be ruined. The landowner in Jesus’ story apparently feels pressured to complete the harvest, and so he returns to the market place several times in the course of the day. The first laborers are hired early in the day, assured they would receive the usual day’s wage. The landowner returns to the market place at 9:00 in the morning, then at noon, again at 3:00 in the afternoon, and finally at 5:00—each time recruiting more laborers, saying simply that he would pay the laborers “whatever is right.”
The harvest is secured, but then comes the astonishing mathematics. Those who had worked little more than an hour were paid first, and they were given a full day’s wage. Seeing this, those hired earlier in the day, no doubt, began calculating how much they might be paid, based on the landowner’s generosity to the latecomers. But each group of workers is offered the same wage, and by the time those who had toiled all day under the blazing sun came forward to be paid, they are fit to be tied, grumbling to the landowner, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat” (Matthew 20:12). And there’s the crux of the issue, isn’t it? This disdain that others, whom we consider inferior to us, might be treated as our equals.
The story, as you might suspect, is little intended to provide a lesson in mathematics or in economics. Indeed, the story makes no sense to us at all, if it is to offer an economics lesson. But Jesus is telling a story about the grace of God, and grace—the gift of God’s abundant, outlandishly extravagant love—this grace is not something you can bargain with or selfishly try to store up and hoard. Suggests Tom Wright in his commentary Matthew for Everyone,
[Grace] isn’t the sort of thing that one person can have a lot of and someone else only a little. The point of the story is that what people get from having served God and [God’s] kingdom is not, actually, a ‘wage’ at all. It’s not, strictly, a reward for work done. God doesn’t make contracts with us, as if we could bargain or negotiate for a better deal. [God] makes covenants, in which [God] promises us everything and asks of us everything in return. When [God] keeps his promises, [God] is not rewarding us for our efforts, but doing what comes naturally to God’s overflowing generous nature.
It is this matter of abundant grace that leads the landowner to respond to one of the grumblers, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you…Or are you envious because I am generous?” (20:13-15).
Truth be told, we do indeed sometimes find ourselves envious of the grace given to others. Indeed, all too often we find ourselves resentful when others actually receive the grace we may well affirm in theory ought to be showered upon them. Presbyterian author Frederick Buechner once observed,
People are prepared for everything except for the fact that beyond the darkness of their blindness there is a great light. They are prepared to go on breaking their backs plowing the same old field until the cows come home without seeing, until they stub their toes on it, that there is a treasure buried in that field rich enough to buy Texas. They are prepared for a God who strikes hard bargains but not for a God who gives as much for an hour’s work as for a day’s. They are prepared for a mustard seed kingdom of God no bigger than the eye of a newt but not for the great banyan it becomes with birds in its branches singing Mozart. They are prepared for the potluck supper at First Presbyterian [or at Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren] but not for the marriage supper of the lamb….
On this day when we lift our prayers for peace, it is the unexpected gift of God’s light that guides those prayers. It is a light that calls us to embrace a new way of thinking about life, a new vision for our relationships, a new perspective and a new way of acting in the world—a way of relating that stems from the compassion and overflowing grace, the mercy and abundant goodness of our God, made most visible to us in the life and ministry of Jesus the Christ.
Kofi Annan, who until recently served as Secretary General of the United Nations, observed a few years ago, “We should have learned by now that a world of glaring inequality—between countries and within them—where millions of people endure brutal oppression and extreme misery—is never going to be a fully safe world, even for its most privileged inhabitants.” And that’s the fallacy, is it not, of the way in which the world around us is inclined to respond to threats of terrorism—simply by piling greater injustice upon injustice, greater fear upon fear, greater violence upon violence, greater suspicion upon suspicion, greater resentment upon resentment.
Jesus calls us to a radically new way of thinking and acting and being in the world that results from encounter with God’s remarkable grace. The good news of life in the kingdom or realm of God, asserts Brian McLaren in his book Everything Must Change,
offers not a prescription but a way, not a formula but an adventure of faith, hope and love. It is not a matter of naïve ignorance about the power of evil or of deluded romanticism about the good heart of the enemy; it is rather a loss of naiveté about the power of violence to cure violence. It is a dose of realism about the futility of seeking security through living ‘by the sword’ (Matthew 26:52).
Again and again in the Gospels we encounter a Jesus who recognizes this futility of living by the sword. Instead, Jesus proclaims a series of beatitudes that point to an upside down, inside out way of living. How blest are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of heaven is theirs. How blest are the sorrowful; they shall find consolation. How blest are those of a gentle spirit; they shall have the earth for their possession. How blest are those who hunger and thirst to see right prevail; they shall be satisfied. How blest are those who show mercy; mercy shall be shown to them. How blest are those whose hearts are pure; they shall see God. How blest are the peacemakers; God shall call them his sons [and daughters]. How blest are those who have suffered persecution for the cause of right; the kingdom of heaven is theirs (Matthew 5:3-10, NEB).
Only days before being tragically assassinated, Martin Luther King, Jr. preached at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. a sermon that turned out to be his final one. Entitled Remaining Awake Through a Great Revolution, the sermon focused on our living through a period not unlike today—a period where significant changes were taking place, a period calling for courage, determination, commitment, openness to a new vision for living. Reminding his hearers that the choice before them was no longer between violence and nonviolence, but rather between nonviolence and nonexistence, King urged his hearers to put into practice the values they espouse. “We shall overcome,” asserted Dr. King, “because the arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
We shall overcome because Carlyle is right—no lie can live forever. We shall overcome because William Cullen Bryant is right—truth crushed to earth will rise again….
With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair the stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.
Thank God for John, who centuries ago out on a lonely, obscure island called Patmos caught vision of a new Jerusalem descending out of heaven from God, who heard a voice saying, “Behold, I make all things new—former things are passed away.”
God grant that we will be participants in this newness and this magnificent development. If we will but do it, we will bring about a new day of justice and brotherhood and peace. And that day the morning stars will sing together and the [children] of God will shout for joy.
f we will but do it. The challenge rings true decades later, echoing the spirit and teachings of Jesus, who invites us to live in the light of God’s extravagant, outlandishly generous grace, and who calls us to walk in a new way of living—a way marked by compassion and peace, mercy and self-giving love. If we will but do it, if we will but live and proclaim this new vision for relationships, we will indeed help bring about a new day of justice and peace, a new day of hope and life in the beloved community. Sisters and brothers, this is our calling, loosening the grip of greed and self-centeredness, choosing instead Christ’s way of compassion, peace, and new life.